The Evolution of Archaic Sparta

1. The Evolution of Archaic Sparta February 1st, 2012

2. What is the Spartan Mirage and why is it problematic for historians?

3. The Spartan Mirage • Distorted historical image (both ancient and modern) of ancient Sparta. • Not a problem of a lack of sources, but of quality of sources; tendency to idealize ancient Sparta. • Sparta a closed society; highly xenophobic, not open to trade etc. • Sparta changes over time; often not reflected in the sources.

4. The Idealization of Spartan Politeia • In other states, I suppose, all men make as much money as they can. One is a farmer, another a ship-owner, another a merchant, and others live by different handicrafts. [2] But at Sparta Lycurgus forbade freeborn citizens to have anything to do with business affairs. He insisted on their regarding as their own concern only those activities that make for civic freedom. [3] Indeed, how should wealth be a serious object there, when he insisted on equal contributions to the food supply and on the same standard of living for all, and thus cut off the attraction of money for indulgence' sake? Why, there is not even any need of money to spend on cloaks: for their adornment is due not to the price of their clothes, but to the excellent condition of their bodies. [4] Nor yet is there any reason for amassing money in order to spend it on one's messmates; for he made it more respectable to help one's fellows by toiling with the body than by spending money,pointing out that toil is an employment of the soul, spending an employment of wealth. (Xenophon. Con. Lac. 7.3-4. G.W. Bowersock, 1925 - http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0210%3Atext%3DConst.+Lac.%3Achapter%3D7)

5. Location of Sparta http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/maps/sparta.jpg

6. Mycenaean and Dark Age Sparta • Sparta a major Mycenaean center. • Victim of the Late Bronze Age collapse. • Ca. 1000 BCE – Dorian speaking Greeks move into Eurotas River valley and the Laconian plain. • Ca. 800 BCE – Gradual economic & political recovery, population increase; synoikismos of five villages. • Land shortage and Stasis. • Messenian Wars: 1. ca. 740-720 BCE. 2. ca. 650 BCE. • Colonization of Taras (aka Tarrentum) in 706 BCE.

7. The Foundation of SpartaStrabo, Geography 8.5.4 • “According to Ephorus the Herakleidai, Eurysthenes and Prokles, took possession of Lakonia, divided it into six parts and turned the chora into poleis. One of these divisions, Amyklai, they picked our as a gift for the man who had betrayed Lakonia to them and who persuaded its ruler at that time to come to an agreement and emigrate, with the Achaeans to Ionia. Sparta they designated as their own, and the royal seat. To the other places they sent kings, with the authority to take in any strangers (xenoi) who wished to live with them – this because the population was so small. Because of its good harbor they mad use of Las as a naval station, while Aigys became a base for operations against their enemies, since its territory bordered upon those of neighboring peoples. Pharis served as the treasury, since it afforded security against external attack.” (Crawford & Whitehead, 1983)

8. The Growth of Spartan Power • Between ca. 700 BCE and 500 BCE Sparta would become the major military power in Greece. • The Spartan politeia. • The Peloponnesian League.

9. The Conquest of Laconia and Messenia • Conquest of Messenia a vital element in Sparta’s social, political, economic development. • Ca. 740-720 BCE – The First Messenian War; Sparta driven by land-hunger to conquer fertile plain of Messenia; local population transformed into quasi-slaves. • Ca. 650 BCE – The Second Messenian War; Sparta weakened after defeat at b. of Hysiae (669 BCE vs. Pheidon of Argos); Messenian subjects rebel but are quickly subdued.

10. Strabo, Geography 8.4-10:On Sparta’s Messenian Wars • “Often the Spartans went to war because of the Messenian’s revolts. Tyrtaeus says in his poems that the first conquest of Messenia took place in the time of his father’s father, and the second on the occasion when the Messenians chose as their allies the men of Argos and Elis and Pisa [and Arkadia], and rose in revolt….It was in this war, Tyrtaeus maintains, that he himself acted as general for the Spartans, for in his elegaic poem called Eunomia he says that he came from Sparta: ‘for the son of Kronos himself, Zeus, spouse of fair-crowned Hera, has given this polis to the Heraklidai, with whom we left windy Erineos and come to the broad island of Pelops.’ So either these elegies are not authentic or else we must give no credence to Philochorus when he asserts that Tyrtaeus was an Athenian, from the (deme) Aphidna: the story goes – and it is also in Callisthenes and several other writers – that Tyrtaeus came from Athens at the request of the Spartans, whom the oracle had instructed to apply to the Athenians for a leader. Anyway, the second war did occur in Tyrtaeus’ time.” (Crawford & Whitehead, Doc. 45)

11. What was significant about the Messenian Wars for the development of Spartan politeia?

12. Implications for the Subjugation of Messenia • Solved land-shortage issues. • Messenians pressed into a semi-servile status (i.e. Helots). • Land divided into 9,000 Kleroi (lots) with Messenian families tied to them; 9000 Kleroi given to 9000 Spartan citizens; Land worked by Helots but owned by Spartans. • Helots always a potential threat. • Spartan citizens occupied entirely with preparation for war. • Spartan constitution (Great Rhetra) designed to prevent future stasis and prepare Spartans for war; ascribed to a mythical lawgiver (Lycurgus) – more probably evolved gradually.

13. The Helots • Helots key to the whole Spartan system. • Not slaves (i.e. could not be sold outside of Messenia). • Not free (i.e. tied to land which they could not own, forced to farm the land for Spartan citizens, conscripted for public labour, military service as light infantry, no political rights). • Allowed Spartan citizens to train for war.

14. Sparta’s Mixed Constitution • Monarchic, aristocratic, and democratic components. • Retained many features of Dark Age political structures. • Society composed of three classes (Spartiates, Perioikoi, Helots). • 2 Kings. • Gerousia (Council of Elders). • Ephors (Chief Magistrates). • Ekklesia (Assembly of Spartan Citizens). • System of checks and balances.

15. The Kings • 2 kings from 2 royal families (Agiodae and Eurypontidae). • Declare war and peace. • Commanders of the Spartan army. • Chief priests. • Judicial functions over heiresses, adoptions, and public roads. • Members of the Gerousia.

16. The Gerousia • Council of 30 Elders (28 + 2 kings) over the age of 60. • Elected for life from noble families. • Pro-bouletic function (Prepare, review, debate legislation before submission to the assembly for a vote). • Advised kings and ephors. • Functioned as a criminal court.

17. The Ephors • Office born of stasis between nobles and people (i.e. Oaths of kings and ephors). • 5 men elected from among the entire citizen body. • Responsible for the protecting the interests of the people against king and nobles. • Had power to indict the kings. • Jurisdiction over civil courts. • Formed a criminal court for the Perioikoi. • Responsible for the discipline of the Spartan citizenry. • Declared war on the Helots upon taking office (sent out Krypteia = Spartan ephebes who murder Helots)

18. The Assembly • Comprised of all male Spartiates over the age of thirty • Summoned by the ephors • Elected ephors and members of the Gerousia • Voted (did not debate) legislation presented by kings or ephors

19. Aristotle, Politics 2. 1265 b 33-42:On the Mixed Spartan Constitution • “Some people maintain that the best politeia must be a mixture of all the politeiai, and they therefore praise that of the Spartans. This is because – on one view – it is a combination of oligarchy, monarchy, and democracy: those who see it this way call the kings the monarchic component and the office of the gerontes the oligarchic, while the office of the ephoroi provides the element of democracy, since the ephoroi are drawn from the demos as a whole. Others, however, declare the ephorate a tyrannical feature and see democracy in the system of messes and the other aspects of daily life.” (Crawford & Whitehead, Doc. 48).

20. What was the principal aim of the Spartan politeia?

21. The Totalitarian State:Spartan Social Relations • Spartan politeia aimed primarily at warfare, obedience, and discipline. • Communism. • Xenophobia. • Practiced eugenics. • The agoge. • Syssitia. • Spartan marriage.

22. The Aim of Spartan Politeia • “A similar spirit appears in some of our recent writers who have adopted this point of view [i.e. on the virtues of empire]. They laud the constitution of Sparta, and they admire the aim of the Spartan legislator in directing the whole of his legislation to the goal of conquest and war.” (Aristotle, Politics. 7.14.16, 1333b. Trans. E. Barker, 1946).

23. Spartan Communism • “The second of Lykourgos’ schemes for the polis, and a most innovative one, was his redistribution of the land. This was necessary because there was a terrible inequality: many men had no property at all and were a burden on the polis in their helplessness, while wealth was entirely concentrated in the hands of the small minority. He therefore decided to banish insolence and envy and crime and luxury, at the same time as those two much more old-established and serious diseases which afflict a politeia – wealth and poverty. This he sought to do by persuading them to pool all their land together and divide it out afresh: they were to live with each other, one and all, as equals, with plots of the same size ensuring them life’s necessities, and with their wish to be pre-eminent expressing itself in the pursuit of excellence – the ethos being that between one man and another there is no difference or inequality other than that determined by reproach for shameful actions and praise for good ones. That was the theory, and what it meant in practice was a distribution of land: 30,000 perioikoi were given plots in Lakonia, while the territory belonging to the astu itself, Sparta, was divided into 9,000 plots, that being the number of Spartiatai….Each individual’s plot was large enough to give a yield of 70 medimnoi of barley for a man and twelve for his wife, with a proportionate amount of liquid crops. A plot of this size, in his view, would be adequate for men who would need sustenance sufficient for their vigour and health but nothing more than that.” (Plutarch, Lykourgos 8. Crawford & Whitehead, Doc. 53).

24. Trade and Economy • “…he declared all gold and silver coinage invalid and prescribed the use of iron currency only. Furthermore, to a great and weighty bulk of this he assigned a trifling face-value, so that a quantity worth ten minas required a large household storeroom to keep it in and a pair of oxen and a cart to move it about….After this he also banished, as undesirable aliens, the unnecessary and superfluous crafts. And even without someone driving them out, most of them would doubtless have departed along with the regular coinage, once there was no medium of sale for their products…” (Plutarch, Lykourgos 9. Crawford & Whitehead, Doc. 53).

25. Building Soldiers • “A father had not the right of bringing up his offspring but had to carry it to a place called Lesche where the elders of the tribes sat in judgment upon the child. If they thought it well-built and strong, they ordered the father to rear it…but if it was mean-looking or misshapen, they sent it away to the place called Exposure, a glen at the foot of Mount Taygetus, for they considered that a child that did not start out healthy and strong would be handicapped in his own life and of no value to the state….” (Xenophon, Const. Lac. 14. Lim & Bailkey, 2002) • “Nor was each man allowed to bring up and educate his son as he chose, but as soon as the boys were seven years old Lycurgus took them from their parents and enrolled them in companies. Here they lived and ate in common and shared their play and work…The older men watched them at their play, and by instituting fights and trials of strength, accurately learned which were the bravest and the strongest…As they grew older their training became more severe…They were taught to steal…if one is caught, he is severely whipped for stealing carelessly and clumsily…The boys steal with such earnestness that there is a story of one who had taken a fox’s cub and hidden it under his cloak, and, though his entrails were being torn out by the claws and teeth of the beast, persevered in concealing it until he died…” (Xenophon, Const. Lac. 16-18. Lim & Bailkey, 2002) • “Considering education to be the most important and noblest work of a law-giver, he began at the very beginning by regulating marriages and the birth of children…He strengthened the bodies of the girls by exercise in running, wrestling, and hurling the discus or the javelin, in order that their children might spring from a healthy source and grow up strong, and that they themselves might have strength to easily endure the pains of childbirth. He did away with all seclusion and retirement of women, and ordained that girls, no less than boys, should go naked in processions, and dance and sing at festivals in the presence of young men…This nakedness of the maidens had in it nothing disgraceful. It was done modestly, not licentiously, and it produced habits of simplicity and taught them to desire good health and beauty of body, and to love honor and courage no less than the men.” (Xenophon, Const. Lac. 14. Lim & Bailkey, 2002)

26. Spartan Hegemony and the Peloponnesian League • 546 BCE – Sparta defeats Argos. • 546 – 500 BCE – Formation of alliances with Peloponnesians and Boeotian states with Sparta as hegemon. • Peloponnesian League. • Internal autonomy for member poleis; Sparta decides on matters of war and peace; Sparta provides commanders for all campaigns.

27. Thucydides 1.76 On the Peloponnesian League • “At all events, Lacedaemonians, we may retort that you, in the exercise of your supremacy, manage the cities of Peloponnesus to suit your own views…” (Trans. B. Jowett, 1881).

28. The Peloponnesian League http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~mmgower

29. What were some of the flaws inherent in the Spartan politeia?

30. Weaknesses in the System • The Helot threat. • Shrinking population: 1. Infanticide. 2. Frequent warfare. 3. Marital relations. 4. Emigration. • Gradual emergence of inequality through: 1. Military success (esp. after 404 BCE). 2. Changes to Spartan inheritance laws.

31. Sparta Past and Present • “Should anyone ask me whether I think that the laws of Lycurgus still remain unchanged at this day, I certainly could not say that with any confidence whatever.1 [2] For I know that formerly the Lacedaemonians preferred to live together at home with moderate fortunes rather than expose themselves to the corrupting influences of flattery as governors of dependent states. [3] And I know too that in former days they were afraid to be found in possession of gold; whereas nowadays there are some who even boast of their possessions. [4] There were alien acts in former days, and to live abroad was illegal; and I have no doubt that the purpose of these regulations was to keep the citizens from being demoralized by contact with foreigners; and now I have no doubt that the fixed ambition of those who are thought to be first among them is to live to their dying day as governors in a foreign land. [5] There was a time when they would fain be worthy of leadership; but now they strive far more earnestly to exercise rule than to be worthy of it. [6] Therefore in times past the Greeks would come to Lacedaemon and beg her to lead them against reputed wrongdoers; but now many are calling on one another to prevent a revival of Lacedaemonian supremacy. [7] Yet we need not wonder if these reproaches are levelled at them, since it is manifest that they obey neither their god nor the laws of Lycurgus.” (Xen. Con. Lac. 14. G.W. Bowerstock, 1925) http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0210%3Atext%3DConst.+Lac.%3Achapter%3D14

32. What impact has the Spartan Mirage had on later periods in Western History?